Sunday, May 9, 2010

The only thing that went well was, well, Ubaldo Jimenez. He's the tough luck loser after allowing 1 ER in 7 innings. He falls to 6-1 with a 0.93 ERA.

The Offense

Made Kershaw work in the first inning. They loaded the bases behind two walks and a bunt single. In total, Kershaw threw 30 pitches. Despite not scoring, I thought that was a terrific start, and that Kershaw was on his way to another 5th inning exit.

Wrong.

It was his best start... probably of his big league career.

Or at least his most efficient. He never threw more than 15 pitches in his remaining seven innings. The Rockies only hit one baseball out of the infield the entire game... an 8th flyout by Clint Barmes.

The Rockies need to send a message to themselves. A message that includes...

The Dodgers aren't so damn tough,

We can win a series in LA.

Again, you know how important these getaway games are to me. This one is especially huge. A series win in LA would do wonders for the Rockies confidence. It would also be great to head into the Phillies series record with a winning record.

If you do that, and then you steal one or possibly two from Philly, you're set up pretty well as the schedule lightens up for the next two weeks. Still have to take care of business of course, but you can really get yourself into a great position. Let's hope they get it done with Ubaldo.

The rising star out of Maracaibo, Venezuela was on his game once again. He was staked to a 6-0 lead right off the bat, but didn't relax or get lazy. He attacked and lived in the strike zone from pitch 1 though pitch 117.

He kept the Dodgers off balance all night long by mixing his baseball, changeup and slider -- all three were very effective for him. This led to seven strikeouts and a scattering of six very soft basehits over 7 1/3 scoreless innings.

Seriously... the Dodgers hit nothing hard at all. And half of their hits came from the red hot Andre Ehtier. Two of those beat the silly overshift Jim Tracy likes to employ. Chacin was just flat on it.

The scary/enjoyable thing about this performance is knowing he can actually improve. Confidence or poise don't look like issues, but he can defintely become more efficient with his pitches. He can get quicker outs and maybe even get himself into the 8th and 9th inning. For now, though, we'll just take and enjoy this roll he's currently on. It's quite a story.